Correction

This posting has been amended from its original, which mistakenly referred to David Peffer as former staff attorney for UCAN. He is still employed at the organization. Also, the dissolution petition was filed in state court, not federal.

Document

UCAN highlights

2000-01: Helped pass legislation in Sacramento that rolled back power rates for SDG&E customers after the state deregulated power companies.

2004: State regulators fined Cingular Wireless a then-record $12 million after UCAN helped expose the company practice of signing up customers for services it could not provide.

2006: UCAN lawsuit against City of San Diego over water rates resulted in a settlement that rebated millions of dollars to customers.

2012: Successfully argued before the California Public Utilities Commission against SDG&E’s plan to charge solar-power users substantially higher rates for using the grid.

SOURCE: U-T Archives

The advocacy group that has taken on San Diego utilities for decades has filed for dissolution in court, amid allegations by its own attorney involving secret bank accounts, illegal payments, an impostor lawyer and an author taking on Communist China.

The allegations have become the subject of a federal subpoena of the Utility Consumers’ Action Network.

The group’s staff attorney wrote to board members last year that founder and Executive Director Michael Shames was maintaining suspicious bank accounts and practicing law without a license.

Shames said the allegations were independently investigated and found to be meritless.

“There was no wrongdoing and nothing even close to it,” Shames said.

According to the lawyer’s allegations, Shames maintained at least four bank accounts with the same typo in them - as the Utility Comsumers Action Network, at the same address as UCAN.

The memos also say Shames practiced law without a license and collected $116,678 in wrongful bonuses during a single year under an improper compensation plan that has been in place for at least a decade.

The attorney, whose concerns were not addressed to his satisfaction, enlisted former City Attorney Michael Aguirre.

The group last week filed for dissolution, a proceeding akin to bankruptcy reorganization for a nonprofit.

The dissolution request apparently came in response to a federal grand jury subpoena that was issued Feb. 16 to UCAN Chairman Kendall Squires.

The subpoena, which was reviewed by The Watchdog, demands that Squires appear in U.S. District Court next Thursday, and bring many of the group’s documents with him.